


All Things New Again

by sheron



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant until 2x02, Canon Het Relationship, F/M, Friendship, Ghosts, Not spooky, Peggy is a ghost, Peggy is affected by Zero Matter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 17:25:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12462420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheron/pseuds/sheron
Summary: Instead of Jason Wilkes, Peggy is the one affected by the Zero Matter in the explosion at Isodyne. Being a ghost may be terribly frustrating, but you can also learn a couple of things about your friends in the process.





	All Things New Again

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this story was inspired by the Spook Me 2017 challenge prompt 'ghost'. Alas, the story is not that spooky, and more of a What-If divergence from the end of 2x02 - "A View in the Dark".

 

Peggy got to the Zero Matter chamber just in time.

She had dispatched the four men they sent after them easily enough, and went after Jason, only to have to face Whitney Frost, who turned out to be much more interesting than Peggy's original impression. Taking the container from Jason, Peggy blocked his quick getaway, holding the container of Zero Matter in front of her like a shield.

"You are smart enough not to shoot me while I'm holding this."

Whitney Frost had the stomach to come alone in the night, but she was still a civilian. Her hungry grey eyes tracked to the container while Peggy slowly advanced on her opponent with the intention to disable. 

Except, Peggy miscalculated a fraction. Whitney reached for the container of Zero Matter at the same time Peggy made for Whitney's gun, and the container slipped from her fingers, shattering on the ground below. Peggy just had the presence of mind to shield Whitney from the brunt of the explosion before her world became darkness and pain. She was engulfed.

Peggy―  


 

* * *

 

―lost some time.

When she became aware again, the bright light from outside was shining through the windows of the Isodyne lab.

She'd lost her gun somehow, but that was the least of her problems. In the wall that she last remembered the Zero Matter container striking before it broke, there was a sizable hole. Peggy's eyes jerked down to her own torso and she splayed her hands on her stomach in momentary anxiety, but there were no visible wounds anywhere on her body. Her dark purple dress wasn't even marred.

Peggy didn't for a moment believe she got away so cleanly. Something very strange was going on here. It was as if she'd just been standing there, in the exact spot she last remembered, except Whitney Frost was nowhere to be found and it was morning again.

"Doctor Wilkes?" She tried, and blinked as no sound came out of her throat. "Jason?" she tried again. Nothing.

Peggy pressed a hand to her throat, trying not to let anxiety get to her. She'd seen what a tiny bit of Zero Matter could do on that tape, how it could consume everything around it. If all she suffered from this was a temporary loss of voice, she'd count herself lucky. 

She started running back the way she'd come, through the doors still open. It only occurred to her that her feet weren't making any sound against the platform after she made it outside the building and the noise that accompanied it. Multiple vehicles were parked outside, the entrance to the lab was cordoned off. She spared a brief thought to the four men she had disabled on her way into the inner labs, but given that she'd seen no damage on her way out, she had to assume they were probably unharmed by the Zero Matter explosion. (Any harm they came to via an expertly wielded screw-bar was another matter entirely.)

Outside, heart fluttering, her eyes sought out the one person she most wanted to see, his back turned to her. He was hunched over on his crutch, leaning forward as if examining the ground.

"Daniel!" she called, before she remembered she had no voice now. She ran to him, and tried to grab his shoulder.

Her hand passed right through his body, making Peggy stumble.

What was this? She stared in horror at her hand, before waving it through Daniel's shoulder like he was a mirage. But no, Daniel was real. He swirled around, as if sensing a presence behind him and peered right through her. 

He looked terrible.

A fine sheen of sweat covered his brow, his face paler than she'd ever seen it. His dark brown eyes, normally so lively when they looked in her direction, were fathomless. Peggy stood frozen for a long moment, pinned by that look even if Daniel couldn't see her. 

Eventually, she managed to say into the soundless void, "Am I a ghost?"

She received no answer.

Daniel shook himself, visibly gathering his wits and straightening his shoulders, harshly pushing off with his crutch to walk past Peggy and nearly through her on the way into the Isodyne building. A number of vaguely familiar SSR Agents clamored for his attention.

"Still nothing?" he asked wearily.

"No sign of Agent Carter, sir."

"Keep looking." The two young agents scurried away inside the building. Daniel didn't follow. "Please, Peggy," she heard, and turned a curious head in his direction. His voice was barely a pained whisper as he continued, low in his throat, "Please don't be lying dead somewhere. You still owe me a drink."

"I don't think I'm dead," Peggy murmured to herself. It was eerie to hear no sound come, no vibration in the cords of her throat, but it was better than doing nothing. "I think something else happened. I've been transported into some kind of a parallel phase... or...something," she couldn't help an impatient wave of the hand. "Howard! Howard can figure this out." But of course Daniel didn't hear her. Not even when she tried shouting directly into his ear, or waving a hand through his body. "Call Howard!"

Then as sudden as a blink, Peggy felt an enormous wave of fatigue pass through her body. It was so overwhelming that she had to close her eyes to try to ride it out, hoping not collapse where she stood. In all her life Peggy had never fainted, and she wasn't about to start now.  


 

* * *

 

She lost some time.

The next thing Peggy became aware of was midday sun shining brightly overhead.

"Okay. No overexerting myself. Message received," she mumbled. Looking around she could see that the active crime-scene investigation was still in progress. Daniel hadn't gone home, even though it must have been hours after the last time she'd been...present. She could see him in deep discussion with one of the agents off to the side, he looked to be concentrating and was rubbing his head like he had a headache.

Peggy realized she felt no aches or pains, no hunger despite it being at least twenty hours since she last ate. She didn't feel sleepy, but a certain weariness had settled like a shroud over her entire body. She felt like every step she fought against an invisible wind, pushing her back. When she looked behind her, there was nothing there, nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly not the pulsating dark hole of Zero Matter she'd half-way dreaded to see.

Another sound drew her attention off to the side. Violet, Daniel's girl, came running a few steps out of her car, before being stopped with by a cautious agent. "You can't enter this area, ma'am."

"Daniel!" Violet's cry made him turn around. She beckoned with a hand.

Peggy was startled by the way Daniel's face just collapsed at the sight of his girlfriend. He waved the agent off, and started to make his way towards her. Violet ran into his embrace and was quickly caught in his arms.

"What happened?" she was asking. "Are you alright?"

Daniel pressed her closer and hid his face in the white material of her nurse uniform. He wouldn't speak. He sounded as if he could start sobbing and the careful breaths he took were his way to prevent that. Peggy wasn't corporeal, but the pain she felt at that moment was very real.

"Daniel, you're scaring me," Violet said, running a careful hand over his hair, a soothing touch. Peggy envied her ability to hold him like this. She yanked her mind away from that thought. Even if she had a corporeal body right now, Daniel wouldn't welcome her touch. He was upset because he'd lost an agent. A friend. That was all they'd ever been to each other. He was with someone else.

That someone else made soft comforting noises at Daniel while he was lost in her embrace.

"Peggy's gone," he mumbled eventually into Violet's shoulder and shuddered. 

Daniel didn't see the expression on Violet's face, her careful look at the back of the dark head pressed to her shoulder. Peggy on the other hand, had the perfect view. After a brief hesitation, Violet kept on petting his hair, but the look she wore was different now, anxious with something other than worry. A realization had swept through her grey eyes. "You―" but Violet cut herself off, and bit her lip. After squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, she seemed to come to a decision. "Never mind. You've been here all night and all morning? You need to eat something, come on. I've got half a bear-claw in the car. We can find a cafe, come on Daniel, you can't think on an empty stomach..."

Violet slid out of his embrace and took him by the elbow, leading him to her car, waiting up by the curb. Peggy wondered at how little resistance Daniel put up.

Peggy called after the pair, "You have to bring Howard here. He has to examine the vault. And me! He is the only one who stands any chance of figuring this out!" But of course she received no reaction.

For a long time she watched as Daniel sat on the passenger seat of the car with his head in his hands, while Violet tried to convince him to eat something from the packet she had in the back seat.

Another wave of darkness, something like nausea and weakness combined passed through Peggy. Before she could fade away, Peggy climbed over Violet's hands ― shuddering as she passed through the woman ― and inside the car into the backseat. She wasn't falling through the floor which meant whatever presence she still had in this world would allow her to remain in the car if she lost herself again.

She was determined that she wouldn't.  


 

* * *

 

The rest of the day and night was one frustration upon the other. Peggy doubted herself when she felt her tenuous hold on consciousness begin to slip, when she felt more like a ghost than a person, and wondered if the whispers she heard were other lost souls. At times she felt like there was a roiling darkness inside her, trying to pull her apart so it could escape. She wouldn't let it. Peggy held on to her consciousness, to her _existence_ with the same absolute determination she approached everything in life.

Daniel went to the office and made SOP inquiring phone-calls to the local hospitals, then to the morgue. Howard, who rushed into the SSR office white-faced and furious proved of no help whatsoever. He shouted at Daniel for daring to lose Peggy, made some vague comments about losing everyone that Peggy tried not to dwell on, and completely failed to notice Peggy's presence no matter how hard she tried to get his attention. Howard stormed out as quickly as he'd stormed in, nearly running away from there, and Jarvis followed in his wake, red-eyed and sniffling suspiciously.

It was rather nice to know that people mourned her death, even if she never wanted to cause this kind of pain to her friends. Another horrible thought struck Peggy. At some point Daniel would have to notify her family. Her poor mother had lost one child already; how could she stand to lose another? And to such a random accident. It didn't bear thinking about.

She couldn't give up. She was going to get her body back. She just had to figure out how.

Towards the evening, SSR agents brought in Jason for questioning in one of the interrogation rooms, and try as she might, Peggy couldn't make them hear that Jason was completely innocent. Of course, he could tell them nothing beyond the seemingly spurious claim of seeing a famous actress last night, which Peggy could see was going to be a hard sell around these parts. Peggy could have convinced Daniel if she'd been able to communicate. As it was, Jason went into lockup and Peggy stayed with him to keep him company out of solidarity.

She didn't sleep. She might have... faded out for a while.

The sensation was most disconcerting and Peggy resolved not to do it again.  


 

* * *

 

To everyone's surprise and nobody's delight, Jack Thompson showed up the next morning and immediately tried to take over the operation.

Peggy thought it an appalling surprise, and mourned any last chance of Jason being released. Daniel could have been brought to a reasonable conclusion, but Jack was another matter entirely. He already looked angry when he strode in.

He greeted Daniel coolly, and received a tired greeting back. Without much ado both men proceeded towards the first interrogation room, to which one of the agents shortly brought Jason Wilkes, sticking him in the chair across from Jack. Daniel stayed outside behind the glass, while Jack watched their prisoner with a frown, his arms crossed on his broad chest.

He stayed that way for a long while, watching Jason squirm in his seat.

Knowing Jack's interrogation technique, Peggy settled in for an unpleasant day and crossed her own arms on her chest. If Jack hit the man without provocation, when she got her body back she was going to punch his lights out. Again.

For the next what seemed like interminable hours, Jack circled over and over Jason's testimony, until Peggy was ready to scream, voiceless or not. She tried not to let it get to her, feeling her vision darken around the edges. Jack was just doing his job. If this was an actual killer he was interrogating, Peggy might have been glad for the tactics that got results.

Meanwhile, Jack bent his head where he towered over Jason's shoulder, and sniffed the air near Jason's face. "You must have sobered up by now."

Jason's response was flat: "I wasn't drunk."

"Right." Nodding, Jack walked back to the opposite side of the table separating them. "And you just happened to see Whitney Frost, wife of a future US Senator, strolling around the dark empty labs at...what was it, 4am in the morning? And then she and Carter vanished into thin air but, of course, you saw none of that." 

Jason looked down at his cuffed hands, pursing his lips.

"Except the actress is fine, last I checked, so your story doesn't add up, Mr. Wilkes." Jack put both hands flat on the interrogation table, leaning forward trying to look intimidating. This didn't work on a trained agent like Dottie, and Peggy herself was immune, but Jason visibly leaned away in trepidation at the aggressive snarl on Jack's lips.

Satisfied with the flinch he got out of the man, Jack straightened again and resumed his casual stalking of the office.

"You see, what I think really happened is this: you've been working a side job for a while. For your Russian friends, maybe? Carter picked up a trail and so you wanted to get rid of her. Easiest way was to convince her to go to your workplace, where the building layout was familiar to you, to dispose of her."

"Dammit, Jack," Peggy muttered helplessly from where she leaned against the wall in the corner. At least he'd given her enough credit to assume she was on some sort of a trail, even if her sense of judgment was still very much being called into question.

"I wouldn't hurt Miss Carter," Jason mumbled.

"Soft on her are you?" Jack said, with a cruel twist to his mouth. His eyes as he stared down Jason were very cold. He put his hand on the cuff of his starched white shirt, undoing a button with a familiar, almost graceful movement. Jack began to roll his sleeve up.

Before Peggy could experience any more mortification on Jason's behalf, the interrogation room's door was wrenched open.

Daniel's dark head poked through the opening. He was frowning.

"Jack, may I speak with you."

"I'm working."

"Jack," Daniel said, steel entering his voice. "This is still my office and my jurisdiction."

Jack turned to him with a snarl. "But Peggy was _my_ report!" 

For a moment, both men blinked at each other, startled by his outburst. Peggy watched with wide-eyed fascination as Jack rolled his shoulders, face going blank. He didn't look at Jason as he snapped, "Don't move," and followed Daniel outside the room.

Peggy jumped up and ran after them. She didn't have to go far, only to Daniel's office across the hall.

Daniel held the door for the other man, then shut it and swung the blinders closed.

"What's going on Jack?" he said quietly. "Wilkes has been consistent with his story so far. Every detail. He isn't trained to lie that well."

"Unless!" Jack said, visibly agitated again, "He's a KGB agent."

Daniel winced, and Peggy could see him consider it. "Doesn't that seem a bit contrived? He's either the best actor we've ever met or he flinches every time I so much as touch my sidearm."

Rattled, Jack turned away from him and ran a hand through his hair. He was facing away from Daniel, so he must have felt a certain freedom, because to Peggy's surprise his face was pained. 

"Tell me what's really going on," Daniel implored.

For a moment the indecision about whether to fight him on this was writ clear on Jack's face, then his shoulders slumped and he closed his eyes. "I sent her here," Jack said in a low voice. "'Pack your bags.' The last thing I said to her."

"You couldn't know―" Daniel was saying, even as Peggy froze, unsure of what she was a witness to. Jack Thompson, missing her badly enough to sound like that?

"I know enough. I know Carter," Jack growled, sounding angry again, but this time less with himself and more with her. "She's a magnet for trouble, she flies towards trouble like a moth to a flame; you know this!" Jack shook his head as if to clear it. "I shouldn't have sent her here."

Peggy had the most unexpected urge to apologize for sneaking into the lab without any backup. In retrospect, it hadn't been her best and most well-thought-out plan. She'd just never thought... Daniel she had expected to show some concern, but Jack? Worrying about her? After the way they'd parted back in New York? 

And yet, he was clearly torn up about what happened. Peggy didn't know what to do with that information.

"This isn't your fault," Daniel said, in a sort of baffled voice, as if unsure if he was actually comforting Jack about this, or if it was an elaborate dream; a sentiment Peggy could relate to. "Any more than it's mine for not being there when she got hurt." Even as he said it, he turned his face away, so as not to show the true emotion. It was easy to talk the talk, but much harder not to blame yourself. Peggy was very familiar with the sensation. Daniel was just less dramatic about it, always trying to act collected.

"Was," Jack said, in a nonsequitur.

Daniel didn't ask, but Jack clarified anyway. "She _was_ a magnet for trouble." His face grew blank, as did his voice. "She's gone."

It hurt to watch them, awkward in the silence that followed that pronouncement.

Suddenly, Peggy straightened and clenched her fists at her sides to the point of pain. Magnets. Laws of attraction.

Thoughts racing through her head, she swirled around and ran towards Jason's room.  


 

* * *

 

In the end, it was a matter of a couple of floating pens, Jason's frantic calls for anyone to see what was happening in his proximity, and Howard, theorizing that Peggy must have absorbed the Zero Matter and was still in the room. He spouted a lot of nonsense about films and coloring reagents that Peggy frankly didn't follow, but which got Jason to babble excitedly at him about Zero Matter and its properties, how it functioned according to the observations they had made at Isodyne. How it consumed whatever it touched, but if Peggy was still here, something else had happened. She had absorbed the Zero Matter somehow, she was in fact controlling it if she could follow them here from the Isodyne labs. 

Daniel and Jack mostly left them to it, eyes roving around the room trying to find Peggy.

She stood in the middle of the room, but everyone's eyes passed completely over her.

And Peggy, she wasn't afraid. That was something that had always bothered her mother, and thrilled Michael. When she knew what she needed to do, she just did it. And now, with all the scientists and friends in the room, she knew.

It had been inside her all this time, waiting to get out. She'd wanted to resist the pull, to contain it within herself because she saw it as a necessary part of remaining tied to this world, but now Peggy knew what a mistake that was. The fear of disappearing kept her from doing what had to be done to end all of this. She had to expel the Zero Matter.

She didn't wait for Howard to develop his silver screen coloring agent. She didn't wait for anyone's permission to leave the room.

She walked out into the deepest part of the Auerbach Theatrical Agency, past the interrogation cells, past the science lab into the vault where the scientists performed controlled experiments with explosives. The concrete walls half a meter thick lined the room, but Peggy passed through them easily in her non-corporeal form. They would only find her when they did the evening rounds, if they found her at all.

For a moment she stood in the center of the room, doubting herself. What if she disappeared? She would be responsible for putting that sick look on Daniel's face again, just when he was starting to gain some hope of her being alive after all. Jarvis would mourn. Howard would blame himself for not solving the problem fast enough. Jack... he was still a puzzle she needed to solve, his anger at losing her seemed to speak to more concern for her wellbeing than she was used to experiencing from the man. Rose, Angie, her parents. She owed it to them to make it through this.

She couldn't back down.

Peggy Carter closed her eyes and didn't try to hold everything inside. She let go.

In the last second before darkness swallowed her vision, she felt a rare second of peace.  


 

* * *

 

When Peggy came too, she was partly on the floor, and partly splayed in Daniel's arms. He was kneeling and holding her firmly but gently, with an arm around her back. She may have leaned into his embrace slightly longer than was strictly necessary. He was very warm. 

She cleared her throat, realized he could hear her again and fought not to tear up.

"I did not faint," Peggy said preemptively, gazing up into his eyes.

"Of course not," the look Daniel was giving her was decidedly...besotted? "You passed out."

A while later, Peggy realized Jack was standing over them, with his arms crossed and a frown on his face.

"You do something like this again, Marge," ― he said at a growl, one index finger pointed her way ― "you are fired."

Then Jack Thompson grinned, the expression splitting across his face like he couldn't contain it anymore.

"Peg!" Howard cried out from the other side, rushing inside the room. "Damn if it isn't good to see you!"

Next to him, Jarvis shuffled silent and stiff, with tear-tracks making their way down his cheeks.

It seemed she had an audience for her momentary weakness.

Regretfully, she detached herself from Daniel's embrace and rose, straightening her dress on the way. And swayed as a spell of dizziness hit; she felt terribly weak. Instantly, Howard and Jarvis rushed to take one of her elbows each, helping her stand. Jack gave a hand up to Daniel.

Then the five of them stood awkwardly, Peggy surrounded by the men who made up her life these days.

She cleared her throat. Daniel gave her a tired, happy smile. Jack glanced away to the far wall.

"Group hug?" Jason called uncertainly from the doorway.  


 

* * *

 

They got the entire office drinks instead. Peggy did not hug.

But she certainly could have held Daniel's hand under the table, if it hadn't been for the fact that he was with Violet. If it was allowed, she could have held his hand forever.

Howard was surrounded by at least five girls and, strangely enough, Jason, who seemed to have hit it off with the other genius on an intellectual basis. Jarvis was suffering patiently and perfecting eye-rolls at his employer, while next to him Rose put away another shot.

When the company of SSR agents Jack had gathered around himself was making loud, rumbustious noises, and Peggy and Daniel had a modicum of privacy, Daniel motioned for her to follow him into his office, away from prying eyes.

"We still have to find out Whitney's involvement," she said, as soon as he shut the door behind her in his office. "She was there that night, Jason wasn't lying. She is the power behind the curtain, I can feel it―"

"Peggy, Peggy!" Daniel lifted a hand to stop her. "We can talk about all of that tomorrow."

Peggy felt at odds with herself. Standing in a room alone with Daniel had been... a secret desire of hers while she'd been in New York, she could face up to as much now after everything she'd been through recently. But it was a hopeless case, and she felt unlike herself, carrying a torch for a man who didn't want her. No matter how happy he'd looked to have her back. No matter how he had pressed her to himself momentarily while she recovered in his embrace.

"Well, I―" she started, trying to restart her brain and bring case work and reason back on the table, since it seemed to be escaping her all too rapidly in Daniel's proximity.

"I broke it off with Violet," he said unexpectedly.

"You what?" Peggy blinked at Daniel wide eyed. Her heart thumped rapidly in her chest, picking up speed.  
Daniel looked pained, but also strangely...relieved? 

"When I thought I'd lost you, Peggy, I―" he glanced away, looked back at her, up through his dark lashes. "I knew."

"Knew?" Peggy breathed unconsciously swaying closer.

"I knew I couldn't be without you." He had somehow gotten a hold of her hand. "Violet already knew. She said she saw it back on the scene at Isodyne. I was real unhappy you were gone, Peg."

"I know," she said, squeezing his fingers. "I was there."

He quirked a brief smile. "Guess you were." Then he straightened his expression. "You really messed up."

Peggy felt her mouth fall open. "I beg your pardon?!"

"As your supervisor..."

"Y-you're not my supervisor."

"As _a_ supervisor, I feel obligated to tell you your actions were ill-advised and reckless." 

"Ill-adv... Reckless?!"

Daniel was smiling, a little smug twist to his lips. Baiting her, to make her react. Suddenly Peggy wasn't angry, she picked up on his game.

"You're not allowed to get yourself killed, Peggy. I won't have it under my jurisdiction."

She arched a brow. "Is that so?"

Daniel shook his head, squeezing her hands again. "I absolutely forbid it." Then his smile split his lips, as if he couldn't contain it anymore. His warm brown eyes challenged her. "Not gonna fight me on this are you? No comeback?"

Peggy kissed him.

 

**Fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> There you have it. After I had the idea for writing a story that diverges around the explosion at Isodyne, and having Peggy get caught up in the Zero Matter, I went through the season 2 episodes wondering how it would affect the plot. What jumped out at me was that it was Jason's desire to expel the Zero Matter, when he gathered up some courage and wanted to protect Peggy, that made the difference for him in the end. And we all know that Peggy is one of the bravest people, so I thought she'd face up to the truth that much sooner. The dialogue at the end is intentionally taken from the last episode of the show.
> 
> As always, feedback is loved!


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